1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to communication systems, and, more particularly, to a transceiver with a variable width cyclic prefix.
2. Description of the Related Art
In communications systems, particularly telephony, it is common practice to transmit signals between a subscriber station and a central switching office via a two-wire bi-directional communication channel. The Plain Old Telephone System (POTS), designed primarily for voice communication, provides an inadequate data transmission rate for many modem applications. To meet the demand for high-speed communications, designers have sought innovative and cost-effective solutions that take advantage of the existing network infrastructure. Several technological advancements have been proposed in the telecommunications industry that make use of the existing network of telephone wires. One of these technologies is the xDSL technology. DSL technology uses the existing network of telephone lines for broadband communications. An ordinary twisted pair equipped with DSL interfaces can transmit videos, television, and high-speed data.
DSL technologies leave the POTS service undisturbed. Traditional analog voice band interfaces use the same frequency band, 0-4 Kilohertz (kHz), as telephone service, thereby preventing concurrent voice and data use. A DSL interface, on the other hand, operates at frequencies above the voice channels from 100 KHz to 1.1 Megahertz (MHz). Thus, a single DSL line is capable of offering simultaneous channels for voice and data.
DSL systems use digital signal processing (DSP) to increase throughput and signal quality through common copper telephone wire. Certain DSL systems provide a downstream data transfer rate from the DSL Point-of-Presence (POP) to the subscriber location at speeds of about 1.5 Megabits per second (MBPS). The transfer rate of 1.5 MBPS, for instance, is fifty times faster than a conventional 28.8 kilobits per second (KBPS) transfer rate.
One popular version of the DSL technology is the Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) technology. The ADSL standard is described in ANSI T1.413 Issue 2, entitled, xe2x80x9cInterface Between Networks and Customer Installationxe2x80x94Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) Metallic Interface, Rev. R4, dated Jun. 12, 1998, incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
ADSL modems use two competing modulation schemes: discrete multi-tone (DMT) and carrierless amplitude/phase modulation (CAP). DMT is the standard adopted by the American National Standards Institute. The technology employed by DMT ADSL modems is termed discrete multi-tone. The standard defines 256 discrete tones. Each tone represents a carrier signal that can be modulated with a digital signal for transmitting data. The specific frequency for a given tone is 4.3125 KHz times the tone number. Tones 1-7 are reserved for voice band and guard band (i.e., tone 1 is the voice band and tones 2-7 are guard bands). Data is not transmitted near the voice band to allow for simultaneous voice and data transmission on a single line. The guard band helps isolate the voice band from the ADSL data bands. Typically, a splitter may be used to isolate any voice band signal from the data tones. Tones 8-32 are used to transmit data upstream (i.e., from the user), and tones 33-256 are used to transmit data downstream (i.e., to the user). Alternatively, all the data tones 8-256 may be used for downstream data, and upstream data present on tones 8-32 would be detected using echo cancellation. Because more tones are used for downstream communication than for upstream communication, the transfer is said to be asymmetric.
Through a training procedure, the modems on both sides of the connection sense and analyze which tones are less affected by impairments in the telephone line. Each tone that is accepted is used to carry information. Accordingly, the maximum capacity is set by the quality of the telephone connection. The maximum data rate defined by the ADSL specification, assuming all tones are used, is about 8 MBPS downstream and about 640 KBPS upstream.
In a typical ADSL system, a central office (CO) modem communicates with a customer premise (CP) modem. The CP modem is typically installed in a home or office. It is likely that the CO modems will remain in service for a number of years, while CP modems will have a relatively short upgrade cycle. The comparatively long service life of the CO modems makes them less flexible and responsive to enhancements in the CP modem. In other words, performance gains in the CP modem may not have as great of an effect on the overall transfer rate if the CO modem is of an older vintage and not able to respond to the increased finctionality.
The present invention is directed to overcoming, or at least reducing the effects of, one or more of the problems set forth above.
One aspect of the present invention is seen in a transceiver including a receive unit and a transmit unit. The receive unit is adapted to receive a prefix width parameter. The transmit unit includes a modulator and a cyclic prefix unit. The modulator is adapted to receive digital data and generate an output symbol based on the digital data. The output symbol includes a plurality of waveform samples. The cyclic prefix unit is adapted to receive the output symbol and the prefix width parameter. The cyclic prefix unit generate a cyclic prefix based on a subset of the plurality of waveform samples and prepends the cyclic prefix to the output symbol to generate a transmit symbol. The size of the subset is based on the prefix width parameter.
In another aspect of the present invention, a method is provided for adjusting the symbol rate of a transceiver. The method includes receiving a prefix width parameter and receiving digital data. An output symbol is generated based on the digital data. The output symbol includes a plurality of waveform samples. A cyclic prefix is generated based on a subset of the plurality of waveform samples. The cyclic prefix is prepended to the output symbol to generate a transmit symbol. The size of the subset is based on the prefix width parameter.